


i care

by serkydragon



Series: soft klance fics because there are never enough [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Fluff, Galra Keith (Voltron), M/M, first voltron fic ho boy, i'll probably do a Keith Comforting Lance sequel, i'm a little rusty but bear with me people, klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 02:52:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10067213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serkydragon/pseuds/serkydragon
Summary: The night after Voltron was hit with Haggar's quintessence, Keith disappears. He's still in the castle, but it's been three days since he's been avoiding the paladins' searches, for a reason unknown to them.Perhaps the boy he bonded with can help?a.k.a my love for galra keith + my love for klance = tHIS





	

**Author's Note:**

> FIRST VOLTRON FIC OH BOY
> 
> and first ever work on AO3 oh boyy
> 
> that makes it sound like i'm a newbie to fanfics, i'm not i swear i'm a fanfiction.net veteran
> 
> lemme know if there's anything weird (OOC character, tense changes, all of that fun stuff)
> 
> EDIT: THANK YOU FOR 100 KUDOS WTF ♥ i posted this yesterday how is that even possible what but tHANK YOU
> 
> enjoy! :3

After what seemed like the final duel with the Galra, what seemed like the end to all of the fighting, tyranny and loss the empire had brought, the paladins were far from finished with their battle - for not only had Shiro disappeared, leaving them stranded without the calm and kind wisdom that only a father figure could bring, but someone else also.

Keith.

He had returned to the hangars with the others, despite secluding himself from them more than usual due to Shiro's absence. He had sat down and eaten a solemn meal with them, barely speaking a word but still present in their conversations, then said a quick "goodnight" and retired to bed.

Three days later, and the back of the red paladin's tired figure retreating down the corridor was the last that anyone had seen of the boy.

At first, they had assumed that, seeing as his bond with Shiro ran since before the team had become paladins of Voltron, he needed more time by himself to recover. So for the first day, they said nothing - the worry began to rise when his disappearance continued into the next.

The first natural reaction was to check if Red was still in her hangar; and there she was, sitting peacefully in her place, perfectly undisturbed by what was happening, so it was safe to assume that Keith wasn't in any danger. The pods were all in place too, meaning neither Keith nor anyone else had left the castle during the night, so that possibility was crossed out. Allura and Coran had checked the camera feeds to maybe catch a glimpse of where the boy could be, but all they saw was grey, empty corridors and the occasional scurry of mice in and out of view.

Throughout the second day, the group had split up, searching different sides of the castle to try and find the red paladin. They occasionally came across doors which were not usually open, and maybe a few crumbs in a corner - Hunk had noticed that despite not showing himself, Keith still entered the kitchen to take food every now and then - but that was the extent of their findings.

In the end, they had all decided that whatever Keith's reason was for disappearing, he would surely come around by himself as he usually did - or, all except one.

Lance.

Despite claiming that Keith was his rival, it wasn't a secret that he genuinely cared about the boy. He enjoyed bickering with him, watching him defeat android after android on the training deck and disguising his silent awe with sassy remarks about how his "position was off", making whatever they happened to be doing a challenge and demanding a rematch if he lost (which, although he would never admit it, was quite often).

Needless to say that he refused to simply leave Keith to deal with his problems on his own, whether the boy wanted him to or not. So one night, while all the other paladins were resting, Lance forwent his beauty sleep and instead chose to sit silently in wait by the kitchen's entrance, knowing that despite all of his bizarre attributes (mullet), Keith was still human and needed to eat at some point.

Usually, Lance would hate sitting alone in a dimly lit corridor with no one but the wall facing him for company, but he found himself strangely comfortable in the constant hum of the castle's engines, a slight draft cooling his skin as he sat and lost himself in thought.

Various memories crossed his mind as he leant his head back against the cold wall behind him - he remembered hearing of Keith for the first time about a year ago at the Garrison, immediately knowing of his top-student reputation and secretly admiring him from the start; he remembered coming face-to-face with him one day, and instantly appointing himself the position of his rival, despite the other's complaints; he remembered the humorous bickering which would occasionally turn into proper arguments, but then simmer back down to the regular rivalrous banter; he remembered hearing rumours of a student flipping a table in the middle of class, closely followed by Keith's expulsion from the Garrison; and he remembered seeing Keith, for the first time in months, holding the guy he was supposed to be saving and completely oblivious to who Lance even was anymore.

He remembered it all.

Keith didn't.

Lance didn't want that to happen again.

Before his mind could drift to sadder thoughts, Lance jumped when he heard a sudden shuffling in the direction of the kitchen. He peered around the corner, his hopes rising, and sure enough, he caught a glimpse of an obscure figure quickly dashing into the room just ahead. Lance smirked and stood up as silently as possible before discretely making his way towards the kitchen, intending to surprise the red paladin. He peeked around the side of the kitchen doorway, and finally saw the person that nobody had seen for three days.

In the low light of the room Lance couldn't distinguish much, but he could make out the shape of his teammate, who was quietly rummaging through a cupboard with his back to Lance. He recognised Keith's usual outfit of red jacket, black t-shirt and trousers, along with his ever-present leather fingerless gloves, and his hair seemed a little messier than usual - then again, the boy probably hadn't seen a hairbrush for as long as he'd been missing.

_Missing._

Lance had a sudden urge to call out to his fellow paladin.

So he did.

"Come here often?" The boy's voice broke slightly as he spoke up - probably a mix of not speaking for so long and a feeling which seemed to be creeping at the back of his brain - but the casual flirtatious tone wasn't hidden in the slightest.

Keith jumped, spinning around to face who had addressed him and dropping whatever he had in his grasp in the process.

In the brief moment that he and Lance were face to face, the blue paladin swore that he could see several emotions cross the other's features: surprise at the sudden interruption, fear of Lance seeing whatever he was hiding, irritation at being discovered, and...

Sadness, along with two flickers of yellow.

Before Lance could comprehend what he'd just seen, Keith had turned around and was sprinting out of the kitchen's back entrance, but the blue paladin was quick to react and was soon running after him.

"Keith, wait!" he yelled, forgetting that everyone else in the castle was asleep. "Just wait for a second!"

But Keith kept moving, skidding around corner after corner, trying his best to evade the boy following him. Lance silently thanked whoever was listening that he'd been in his middle school's swim team, for he was sure that he would have collapsed from exhaustion three corridors ago otherwise.

As the two maneuvered through the castle, Lance could make out more features of Keith's appearance as the corridors were less dim than the kitchen had been: his hair definitely seemed messier - no, puffier would be the right word for it - and the boy wondered for a second if it was the lighting playing tricks on him, or if Keith's fingerless gloves were now somehow covering his entire hands rather than just a part of them, due to his fingers' seemingly darker complexion.

Just as an ache was starting to worm its way through Lance's legs from all of the sprinting, he noticed that the red paladin had accidentally made a wrong turn and had ended up at a dead-end. There was still a corner separating the two boys, but knowing that Keith could no longer run away, Lance took this chance to slow down and gain back his breath.

"Damn, you can run," he managed to say as he gasped for air, leaning forward and resting his hands on his knees. "You been practicing?"

"Go away, Lance."

For a split second, Lance felt that feeling from before creeping up from the back of his head again. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he passed it off as nothing but surprise at hearing his teammate's voice for the first time in three days.

He chuckled. "You're not getting rid of me that easily, mullet."

"I said _go away, Lance._ "

The smirk on the blue paladin's features disappeared at these words. He knew that he could be blind sometimes, and sometimes take bickering or banter a bit too far, but he knew when Keith was being serious. However, what anyone else would have understood as an angry, irritated remark, Lance interpreted as something entirely different.

_Help me._

"Keith," Lance started, his voice losing its usual cockiness or joking nature, and instead being replaced with a tone that was laced with care and concern. "You can't hide away forever."

"And why's that?" came the answer.

 _Because I miss you,_ was Lance's first reaction. He quickly bit his tongue, surprised at his own brain, before shaking himself mentally and replying with a lie that he hoped Keith wouldn't notice.

"Because... we can't form Voltron otherwise."

"Shiro's gone. We can't form Voltron whether I come back or not."

Ok, so he noticed.

Lance sighed. He leaned back against the corridor wall and slid down until he hit the floor, thinking carefully about what he should say next. Keith clearly wasn't in a joking mood, and the boy could swear that he heard the other's voice waver a little when he mentioned Shiro's absence.

"Keith," he tried again. "I know we can't form Voltron, with or without you. I said that 'cuz what I was actually gonna say sounded dumb. I just..." He took a deep breath. Screw it. "I miss having you around, man. There, I said it, mock me, I'm cheesy, whatever. It's true. I miss you making fun of me, I miss making fun of you back, I miss pointing out everywhere you go wrong in training only to hear you do the same for me to piss me off, I miss-" He caught himself. "Shit, I'm rambling, aren't I? I should stop that. Yup. I should."

In the beat of silence that followed, Lance was sure his heart was about to rip out of his chest from how hard it was beating.

"It's fine."

The blue-eyed boy nearly leapt up right there and then, but instead stayed anchored to the ground and settled with whipping his head in Keith's direction. From how close his voice had sounded, he figured that the other was also sitting on the floor of his side of the corner. Lance stayed quiet, waiting to see if Keith would continue speaking.

He did.

"I... I miss hearing people speak." Keith's voice sounded hesitant, almost as if he was trying to avoid Lance's attention despite it being just them. "I mean, I hear you guys talking. In the castle. But, it's not really... It's not the same."

Lance couldn't help his mouth from twitching upwards a little. "Keith the introvert, admitting to missing a social life?"

"Shut up," came the reply, but Lance couldn't any malice in it. He smiled.

But his grin faded when he remembered the matter at hand. "I'm... not going to force you. To come back, I mean." The boy fidgeted, finding his fingernails very interesting all of a sudden, despite not actually being under Keith's gaze. "And I won't force you to tell me what's up. But... think about it, yeah?" He turned his head towards the corner that the red paladin was sitting just ahead of, wishing that he could see him, if only for a second. He stood up. "You can always trust us, Keith. You can..." He hesitated again. "You can always trust me."

Lance threw one last glance in Keith's direction before turning around, and was just about to make his way back to his room when he heard a shuffling from behind him.

"Wait."

The blue paladin peered over his shoulder, humming questioningly in response.

There came a breath from behind the corner, as if the other boy was preparing himself for whatever he was about to say. "I'll tell you," he said quietly.

Lance blinked in surprise. "I don't want to pressure y-"

"You're not pressuring me. I want to tell you." Keith's voice, albeit still quiet, lacked the hesitation from just a few moments. Lance was glad to hear the usual determination of his tone, but was still a little skeptical about the red paladin's sudden openness. 

Despite this, he wasn't one to ignore a secret, so he stayed quiet and waited for Keith to continue speaking, turning back around fully.

There was another deep breath. "I'm Galra."

Lance lifted an eyebrow, confused. "We already knew that, dude."

"Not like that!" Keith partly snapped, making the blue-eyed teen step back a little. Sensing the harshness in his voice, the other quickly regained himself. "Sorry, I just... I mean, I'm Galra. As in, physically."

The blue paladin still didn't quite understand. "Again, I don't-"

"I'm freaking purple, Lance!"

Lance's sentence stopped dead in its tracks. He wanted to ask so many questions - you have purple skin now? Do you have claws? Are your teeth sharper? Did you grow taller? - but sensing the hesitance and insecurity radiating off of Keith, he kept his curiosity to himself and instead simply asked, "How?"

"The hell do you mean, how?!"

"I mean, how come it's only now?"

Keith huffed, and Lance was willing to bet that he had crossed his arms. "Probably that quintessence that Haggar attacked us with. I remember when I touched some before after breaking into a Galra base that my skin turned weird for a second. For some reason, this reaction was delayed. But..." He paused. "The amount she used this time... I think-" His words got caught in his throat for a second, but he swallowed and continued. "I think it might be permanent." 

Silence.

"Keith..." Lance spoke quietly, his voice soft. "You don't have to hide from us because of that. When Pidge came out as a girl, we didn't judge them."

Keith laughed dryly. "Yeah, except Pidge isn't a purple monst-"

"Don't." The blue paladin's tone was sterner now. "Don't call yourself that."

"Well what else can I call myself?" Another self-deprecating laugh. "Purple alien? Purple creature? Purple weirdo?"

"You can call yourself my _friend_." The words came out before he could stop them, and Lance's heart jumped in his chest as he spoke the last syllable. It was as if it was scolding him for taking this long to admit it. _Might as well keep going_. "You're my friend, Keith. I worry about you, I c-" Lance gulped, his heartbeat going too fast for his lungs to handle. "I care about you. It might not seem like it, but I do. We had a bonding moment, remember?" The boy chuckled, trying to hide his wavering voice, but if anything it just made it sound even more unsure.

"How can you be friends with the kind who are murdering millions?"

"I can't, so it's a good thing you're not," Lance replied, smiling and leaning back against the wall. He looked up at the blank ceiling of the corridor, imagining all the constellations that lay beyond it; all the planets, the nebulas, the black matter floating in-between everything. He felt lucky to be this close to it all, this _important_ , and he knew that if he were in Keith's place, he would certainly have embraced an extraterrestrial heritage. Being human seemed so boring and insignificant after a while.

"Allura doesn't agree with that."

"Allura had her entire race killed by Zarkon. And she apologised for treating you differently at first." Lance looked back down at his feet, his eyes running over the fabric of his grey sneakers. "Keith, like I said before, I'm not gonna force you to come back. But remember that no one here is gonna judge you. For anything." He smirked. "Except your mullet."

"Shut up, Lance," came the reply, but his voice sounded a little different than before. It no longer sounded slightly distant and didn't echo quite as much, almost as if Keith were standing right there next to him.

And sure enough, when Lance turned his head to face whatever movement he'd perceived in the corner of his eye, there was Keith. Still partially hidden by the corner which had been separating the two, but Keith nonetheless.

The first trait that leapt to the blue paladin's vision was, of course, his purple skin. It was a little paler than the other Galra that he'd seen - more of a lilac. His hair had changed a shade as well, and now possessed more of a coloured hue; and its volume had indeed amplified slightly, due to the two cat-like ears curving up from each side of his face.

And his eyes.

Lance swore on that day that it wasn't two eyes looking back at him, but instead two bright suns burning into his vision, and despite their lack of pupils Lance knew that the other boy was avoiding his gaze. In the dim light of the corridor, the blue paladin noticed the slightly darker, indigo patches surrounding his eyes, as if he'd been crying not too long before.

The red paladin's fists were clenched at his sides and his shoulders were hunched, looking as though he was preparing himself for whatever comments or remarks Lance would surely throw his way.

But nothing came.

For when Keith looked up, all he saw was Lance standing silently, his mouth upturned into a soft smile, and his arms outstretched, looking at his friend with kind eyes that made the red paladin's heart ache.

_Let me accept you._

Before his brain could catch up with his body, Keith had practically fallen forward, straight into the blue-eyed boy's embrace.

Lance said nothing, simply catching his friend as he fell, wrapping his arms around his upper back as if he was protecting him from whatever demons were lurking nearby. He rubbed soft circles into the other's shoulder, carding his fingers through his hair as he felt Keith's hands grip his shirt, and ignored the feeling of wetness on his shirt as he cried quietly into his shoulder.

For a while, the two stayed like that, just holding eachother, refusing to let the other go for anything.

When Keith finally pulled away, his gaze remained on the ground and he was still sniffling slightly, but Lance could practically see the wave of peace and relief washing over him.

Swallowing back down any nervousness due to their close proximity, he held out his hand to the other paladin. "Shall we?"

Keith regarded his hand for moment, hesitating. _Was this safe?_

But when he looked back up at Lance, he immediately knew the answer to that question.

_Let me protect you._

So with a smile that could have melted every comet in the solar system, he took it.

**Author's Note:**

> i was listening to "Trust the light" by Sebastiano Serafini for like half of this, it's a really pretty song that u should definitely listen to
> 
> i was considering doing a sequel for this with keith comforting lance, would anyone wanna see that? :3
> 
> • hmu at these places if u wanna!  
> ► ko-fi.com/serkyy  
> ► twitter.com/asstrophydicks  
> ► berserkdragon.tumblr.com


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